The Blessed (Saint) Augustine
of HippoHis Place in the Orthodox
Church: A Corrective

"O Lord the One God, God
the Trinity, whatever I have said in these books that is of Thine, may
they acknowledge who are Thine; if anything of my own, may it be pardoned
both by Thee and by those who are Thine."

—St. Augustine, On the Trinity

There is unfortunately within
the Orthodox Church a minority of teachers who, in their zeal to guard
the Faithful from some of the errors in St. Augustine's teachings,
have gone to the extreme of maligning him and impious heresy-hunting. In
their often legitimate criticism of the writings of this blessed Church
Father from Hippo, they irreverently seek to prove that he was never, nor
should be, considered a Saint of the Orthodox Church. They admonish the
Faithful to disavow him as a Father. Moreover, they often wrongly attribute
heretical teachings of later "Augustinians" to St. Augustine himself. In
this way a few of these people even try to show that he was a heretic.
This is shocking and absolutely incorrect, as this compilation and the
works cited herein will prove.

Closing out this compilation
are excerpts from On the Mystagagy of the Holy Spirit, by St. Photios
the Great. His arguments were addressed to those who called Augustine
and Ambrose Fathers, but then used them to refute the consensus patrum.
These ninth-century Latin-minded Christians were attempting to muster support
for the Filioque
heresy from the writings of some Western Fathers;
thus the historical situation is admittedly different than the one I am
addressing with this compilation. Nonetheless, St. Photios' logic is entirely
applicable. —Patrick Barnes

Letters of Fr. Seraphim Rose
Concerning Blessed Augustine

Sept. 29/Oct. 12, 1975St. Cyriacus

Dear Father Igor [Kapral],*

... Now, something at last that is
not a request, but an expression of our deep concern over our present-day
Orthodox mission. Fr. N— in his latest "Witness" again makes a self-assured
and quite unfounded attack on Blessed Augustine. Everyone knows of the
erroneous doctrine of Blessed Augustine on grace—but why this "fundamentalist"
attempt to destroy entirely someone who has never in Orthodox tradition
been denied a place among the Fathers of the Church? Fr. Theodoritos, doubtless
speaking for other zealots in Greece and on the Holy Mountain, writes us
that of course he accepts Augustine as a Saint, because St. Nikodemos
of the Holy Mountain does. Our Vladika John** had a service written to
him and had great devotion for him. St. Nikodemos put him in our Eastern
Calendar (much as Vladika John put St. Patrick there), and our Russian
19th-century Fathers followed him. The Fifth Ecumenical Council ranks Augustine
as a theological authority on the same level as Sts. Basil, Gregory and
John Chrysostom, with no qualification. The contemporaries of Augustine
who disagreed with him (St. Vincent of Lerins, St. John Cassian) corrected
his teaching without mentioning his name out of respect, far less calling
him a "heretic." His other contemporaries, including great Fathers, always
addressed him with the utmost respect. The universal Orthodox tradition
accepts him as an undoubted Holy Father, although with a flaw in his teaching—rather
like St. Gregory of Nyssa in the East. Whence, then, this strangely "Protestant"
campaign to declare Blessed Augustine a heretic, and to utterly condemn
anyone who disagrees with this? This greatly disturbs us, not so much for
the sake of Blessed Augustine (who, after all, is a Father of less weight
than many others), but because it reveals a very unhealthy "party" spirit
which threatens the whole English-speaking Orthodox mission. Fr. N— as
much as says: If you do not believe exactly as Fr. P— believes, you are
not Orthodox! If you recommend a 19th-century catechism (as Vladika John
always did to converts) you are a Latin; if you read Unseen Warfare
you are under Latin influence; if you refuse to believe in evolution
(!), you are under Western influence!!!

We share our concern with you, because
we are really being discouraged by this unhealthy attitude, which is really
zeal not according to knowledge
[Romans 10:2]. We and others have
tried gently to communicate with Fr. N— and Fr. P— about such things, but
the impression is that no communication is possible; on every subject they
are "right," they are the "experts," and no other opinion is possible....

Please forgive us for burdening you
with all this. We would very much like to know your thoughts with regard
to any of this. Is there are way that [they] can be persuaded to be less
reckless? There seems to be no one from the "Russians" for whom they have
any respect,—everyone is under "Western influence." (This is Schmemanism!)
How can they be made to see, before it is too late, that we should all
be humble and not think much of our own "theology," that we are all
perhaps under "Western influences" of various sorts (this is very evident
in the case of Fr. N— himself), but that this should not exclude us from
Orthodoxy, as long as we are struggling to understand the truth.

We ask your prayers for us.

With love in Christ,

Seraphim, Monk

*The future Bishop Hilarion.—ED.**Archbishop John Maximovitch.—ED.

March 17/30, 1976St. Patrick of Ireland

Dear Brother in Christ, Nicholas [Moreno],

Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ.
I pray you are faring well in the Fast and will be prepared to meet the
Holy Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour. This is spiritually a very
rich part of the year for us, with the long services, the special Lenten
tone of life, the readings from the Holy Fathers. I imagine all the readings
there are in Russian, but I hope that somehow you are able to get benefit
from this practice of readings during the services. Here we have been reading
The Ladder, The Lausiac History, Abba Dorotheos, and the Life
of the Fathers [Vita Patrum] of St. Gregory of Tours. Reading some
of these books over again every year only puts them deeper into one's Orthodox
consciousness, and there are always "new" things there no matter how often
one has read them—which, of course, only shows how dense we are and how
much we need such things.

I hope that in the midst of your learning
(which we pray may be very fruitful!) you are also getting the feel for
that which can't be directly taught—the tone of Orthodox life and thought
which comes "between the lines" as it were, the respect for the older generation
which is handing down the sacred treasure of Orthodoxy, the approach to
the teaching of the Holy Fathers which should be not academic but practical,
and should see beyond superficial "disputes" to the deeper meaning of the
Patristic teaching. The Patristic "experts" of the newer school miss this,
and this is a great temptation in our Church now also, since everyone is
now affected to some degree or other by the soul-less academic air around
us. Of late we have noticed how shallow has been the discussion of Blessed
Augustine—a cold, calculating approach to him which would either condescendingly
"accept" him or else "throw him out of the calendar" based solely on an
abstract analysis of his teaching. But the true Orthodox perspective is,
first of all, to distrust one's abstract "theological" outlook and ask:
what do our elders think; what did the recent Fathers think? And taking
these opinions respectfully, one then begins to put together the picture
for oneself. But the "new theologians," when they hear that our recent
fathers such as St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain or our own Archbishop
John had great respect for Blessed Augustine, can only say with disdain—"they
were under Western influence"—and throw out their weighty opinions with
a quite "Western" lack of feeling and understanding. Anyone who has read
Blessed Augustine's Confessions with sympathy will not readily want
to "throw him out of the calendar"—for he will see in this book precisely
that fiery zeal and love which is precisely what is so lacking in
our Orthodox life today! Have you read this book, by the way?—you should.
Archbishop Philaret of Chernigov, in his 19th-century Patrology, while
setting forth clearly Blessed Augustine's mistakes rather overemphases—still
highly praises this book for its warmth and piety. And perhaps Blessed
Augustine's very "Westernness" makes him more relevant for us today who
are submerged in the West and its way of thought; it is surely pride for
us to think that we will read only the great "Eastern" and "mystical" books.

Well, I didn't really mean to digress
so much on this subject. But at least you know that we are thinking of
you and are very anxious for you to get the maximum from your seminary
and monastery experience. Above all, keep your heart open and learn to
be a little detached from the many intellectual arguments and currents
that buzz about our Church. Let us know how you are doing. Pray for us—we
have started to print the book on the Life of Blessed Paisius, which is
an immense project for us....

With love in Christ,

Seraphim, Monk

June 13/26, 1981St. Tryphillius of Cyprus

Dear Father Michael [Azkoul],

Christ is in our midst!

Thank you for your letter. I am frankly
happy to see someone with your views on Blessed Augustine willing to do
something besides hit him (and all of us who have any respect for him)
over the head.

You ask for cooperation on what seems
to be a "thorough study" of Blessed Augustine. I really wonder about the
value of such a study—for someone who wishes to expose the source of "Western
influence" in Orthodox theology, this detailed analysis itself seems so
terribly Western!

If your attempt is to find out Augustine's
real place in the Orthodox Church, I think your approach is all wrong.
It assumes that "we moderns" are the ones who can do this—that we can "know
better" than anyone in the Orthodox past. I don't think so. I have a deep
distrust of all of us who are writing on theological subjects today—we
are more under "Western influence" than anyone before, and the less we
are aware of it the more obnoxious our "Westernism" becomes. Our whole
cold, academic, and often disdainful approach to theology is so remote
from the Fathers, so foreign to them. Let us admit this and try not to
be so presumptuous (I speak for myself also).

I have no time (and probably not the
sources) to find out how much St. Photios or St. Mark read of Blessed Augustine.
I would suspect that St. Photios had read rather little apart from the
texts under dispute, and St. Mark probably more (in fact, St. Mark can
probably be shown to be under Augustine's "influence" in some way if you
search hard enough! —his disciple Gennadius, after all, was the translator
of Thomas Aquinas into Greek). Undoubtedly their respect for Augustine
was based on the general respect for him in the Church, especially in the
West from the very beginning.

And this brings up the only real question
I think you might fruitfully research: what did the Western Church think
of Blessed Augustine in the centuries when it was Orthodox? The West knew
him as one of their own Fathers; it knew his writings well, including the
disputes over them. What did the Western Fathers who were linked with the
East think of him? We know St. Cassian's opinion—he challenged (politely)
Augustine's teaching on grace while accepting his authority on other questions.
St. Vincent of Lerins' argument is more with the immoderate followers of
Augustine. In neither case was there talk of "heresy," or of someone who
was totally un-Orthodox. St. Faustus of Lerins—if anyone, he should be
an enemy of Augustine, but the evidence seems to the contrary. St. Caesarius
of Arles, St. Gregory the Great-admirers of Augustine, while not following
his exaggerations on grace. I don't mention some of the enthusiastic followers
of Augustine.

There is room for research here in
Latin sources, but no research can overthrow the obvious fact (it seems
to me)—the Orthodox West accepted him as a Father. If he's really a "heretic,"
then doesn't the whole West go down the drain with him? I'm sure you can
find enough signs of "Western mentality" in Gregory the Great, for example,
to disqualify him as a Father and Saint in the eyes of many of today's
Orthodox scholars—he also is accepted in the East on the basis of his general
reputation in the West, and on the basis of his "Dialogues" (which I'm
sure a few would now question as having a right to be called an Orthodox
book).

I think the "heresy hunt" over Augustine
reveals at least two major faults in today's Orthodox scholars who are
pursuing it:

1. A profound insecurity over their
own Orthodoxy, born of the uncertainties of our times, the betrayal of
ecumenism, and their own purely Western education. Here Augustine is a
"scapegoat"—hit him hard enough and it proves how Orthodox you yourself
really are!

2. An incipient sectarian consciousness-in
attacking Augustine so bitterly one not only attacks the whole Orthodox
West of the early centuries, but also a great many Orthodox thinkers of
recent centuries and today. I could name you bishops in our Church who
think like Augustine on a number of points-are they, then, "heretics" too?
I think some of our anti-Augustinians are coming close to this conclusion,
and thus close to schism and the formation of an "Orthodox" sect that
prides itself on the correctness of its intellectual views....

I myself am no great admirer of Augustine's
doctrines. He does indeed have that Western "super-logicalness" which the
Eastern Fathers don't have (the same "super-logicalness" which the critics
of Augustine today display so abundantly!). The one main lovable and Orthodox
thing about him is his Orthodox feeling, piety, love for Christ, which
comes out so strongly in his non-dogmatic works like the
Confessions
(the Russian Fathers also love the Soliloquies). To destroy
Augustine, as today's critics are trying to do, is to help to destroy also
this piety and love for Christ—these are too "simple" for today's intellectuals
(even though they also claim to be "pious" in their own way). Today it
is Augustine; tomorrow (and it's already begun) the attack will be on the
"simple" bishops and priests of our Church. The anti-Augustine movement
is a step towards schism and further disorders in the Orthodox Church.

Let us assume that one's exegesis of
Romans 5:12 is incorrect; that one believes like Augustine on the transmission
of original sin; that one knows little of the difference between the "transcendent"
and the "economic" Trinity and sometimes confuses them. Can't one still
be Orthodox? Does one have to shout so loudly one's "correctness" on such
matters, and one's disdain (and this disdain is strongly felt!) for those
who believe thus? In the history of the Church, opinions such as these
which disagree with the consensus of the Church have not been a cause for
heresy hunts. Recognizing our fallible human nature, the Fathers of the
past have kept the best Orthodox views and left in silence such private
views which have not tried to proclaim themselves the only Orthodox views.

I myself fear the cold hearts of the
"intellectually correct" much more than any errors you might find in Augustine.
I sense in these cold hearts a preparation for the work of Antichrist (whose
imitation of Christ must also extend to "correct theology"!); I feel in
Augustine the love of Christ.

Forgive me for my frankness, but I
think you probably welcome it. I have spoken from the heart, and I hope
you will not pass this letter around so it can be put in various "files"
and picked apart for its undoubted shortcomings.

May God preserve us all in His grace!
Please pray for us.

With love in Christ,

Unworthy Hieromonk Seraphim

P.S. An important point I didn't specify in the letter
above the extreme criticism of Augustine shows such a lack of trust
in the Orthodox Fathers and bishops of the past who accepted him as
a Father (including the whole Orthodox West before the Schism). This lack
of trust is a symptom of the coldness of heart of our times.

* From FatherSeraphim Rose, The Place of Blessed
Augustine in the Orthodox Church (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska
Brotherhood, 1996 [1983]), pp. 93-101.

An Orthodox Tradition
Q&A:

I know that you have refused
to say that the Blessed Augustine of Hippo was a heretic. Nonetheless,
there are those who would say that his teachings on "original sin," created
grace, and the Holy Trinity are errors that cast doubt on his sanctity.
Would you address a few words to your readers about this subject? (B.C.,
OR)

In an epoch when basic Christian
virtues are rare, there are perhaps more fruitful pursuits than those of
arguing against the sanctity of a Churchman who, whatever his alleged errors
and misunderstandings, has long served as an inspiring example of the power
of the Christian Faith to bring sinful men and women out of the delusions
of paganism and the ways of iniquity to a life of pious morality, if not
Christian enlightenment. Nonetheless, we will make a few comments about
the famous and revered Bishop of Hippo, a pivotal figure in the history
of North African Christianity who is commemorated in the Orthodox Church
on June 15.

Above, a traditional Icon
of Saint Augustine, the work of Ralles Kopsides, a celebrated Greek iconographer
and student of Photios Kontoglou.

There are those who argue
that Saint Augustine (†430) wrote a number of things inconsistent with
the consensus of the Fathers, especially with regard to sin and human guilt
before God and the nature of Grace. This is partly because distortions
and overstatements of certain among his theological precepts by Medieval
and Reformation thinkers have been unfairly attributed to the Saint himself.
In fact, though, one would be hard-pressed to find in the writings of St.
Augustine evidence of an intentional distortion of the Church’s teachings
or signs of tenacious resistance to correction by his contemporaries. Indeed,
Pope Vigilius [†555], in reconciling himself to the decisions of the Fifth
Œcumenical Synod, invoked the memory, among "...our Fathers," of the "blessed
Augustine" for his willingness to retract and correct various among his
"writings" and "sayings" ("Decretal Letter," The Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, 2nd series, Vol. XIV). Rather, St. Augustine’s works are marked
by profound personal piety, a spirit of contrition, and a relentless deference
to the teaching authority of the Church: traits of spiritual enlightenment.
Moreover, while some may argue that his notions about "created" Grace are
incompatible with Orthodox teachings about our illumination by Uncreated
Grace, this does not mean, if such were indeed true, that he did not experience
true Glorification, as his lofty spiritual writings clearly affirm. A purported
inability to describe the ineffable, or the perpetuation of supposed conceptual
ambiguities in doing so, it seems to us, does not necessarily obviate the
possibility of one’s experiencing it. We can also note that such historical
luminaries as St. Gregory the Dialogist, Pope of Rome (†604), St. Photios
the Great (†895), and St. Mark of Ephesus (†1444 or 1445), while citing
him, in specific instances, with certain qualifications, nonetheless also
paid homage to his sanctity:

In his letter, "To Innocent,
Prefect of Africa," Pope Gregory calls St. Augustine "blessed" (see Epistles,
10.37 [NPNF,
2nd series, Vol. XIII]), and St. Photios refers
to him as the "divine Augustine" ("Augoustinon ton hieron") (see
his "Epistle to the Archbishop of Aquileia," Patrologia Graeca, Vol.
CII, col. 809D), as does St. Mark in the thirty-fourth of his syllogistic
chapters in defense of the Orthodox Faith against the Latins at the Council
of Florence ("Syllogistika kephalia pros Latinous" ) . (While it
may be argued, here, that many Eastern Church Fathers held the Blessed
Augustine in high esteem simply because they had not read his writings,
both St. Photios and St. Mark, once more, were at least familiar enough
with his works to evaluate, qualify, and, more significantly, praise his
theological discourses.) In our own times, quoting St. Augustine in his
arguments against the Latin teaching on the immaculate conception—indeed,
from a passage in which the Bishop of Hippo speaks of sanctification and
individual union with God (Glorification) in a way consistent with the
most exalted teachings of the Church Fathers—, St. John of Shanghai and
San Francisco (†1966) also refers to him as "blessed" (see The Orthodox
Veneration of the Mother of God [Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska
Brotherhood, 1987], p. 42).

A rather more balanced assessment
of St. Augustine than one usually finds among Western writers is that of
the late Hieromonk Seraphim of Platina, who, in his monograph The
Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church(Platina, CA:
St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1983),* writes:

...[He] has always
been regarded with some reserve in the East. In our own days, ...there
have risen two opposite and extreme views of him. One view, influenced
by Roman Catholic opinions, sees rather more importance in him as a Father
of the Church than the Orthodox Church has given him in the past; while
the other view has tended to underestimate his Orthodox importance, some
even going as far as to call him a ‘heretic.’ ...The Orthodox view of him...,
held consistently down the centuries by the Holy Fathers of the East and
(in the early centuries) of the West as well, goes to neither extreme,
but is a balanced appraisal of him with due credit given both to his unquestioned
greatness and to his faults. (p. 8).

Though Father Seraphim’s view
is, as we have noted, more balanced than most, we are obliged to
say that his observations, too, evidence a critical approach to
sanctity that can obfuscate its true dimensions. It is in their fidelity
to the common phronema of the Church, and not in the expression
of personal opinions that may or may not reflect that commonality, that
our Fathers and Saints make manifest their holiness. It is also in their
universal recognition by the Orthodox Church that the verity of
their witness is ultimately established. It is, thus, worthy of note that
our Father among the Saints Augustine is cited as "shining forth most resplendently
among the African Bishops" in the Acts of the Fifth Œcumenical Synod (553)
("Ruling of the Synod," P. Labbe and G. Cossart, Sacrasancta Concilia,
1671, Vol. V). Similarly, in his epistle to the Fathers of the same Synod,
St. Justinian (†565) includes, in his references to the "holy Fathers,"
Augustine among such luminaries as Sts. Athanasios (†373), Basil (†379),
Gregory the Theologian (†389), Gregory of Nyssa (†395), John Chrysostomos
(†407), Cyril of Alexandria (†444), et al. (ibid.).

* We should observe in
passing, incidentally, that among his collected testimonials from the Fathers
to the sanctity of the Blessed Augustine in this work, Father Seraphim
wrongly attributes to St. Gregory the Dialogist a reference to "Saint"
Augustine in a letter which was, in fact, not written by the Saint, but
addressed to him by Licinianus, the Bishop of Carthagena, in Spain. Using
Russian sources for other of his references, his citations from various
Greek Fathers are also, at times, not wholly faithful to the original Greek.
Finally, the use of the words "blessed" and "saint" to distinguish between
two categories of holiness, while a common device in some Orthodox circles,
has no counterpart in the Patristic literature. The words "divine," "blessed,"
"righteous," and "holy" (the actual meaning of the title "saint," which
in Greek is expressed in two words "hagios" and "hosios"), among others,
are used interchangeably to refer to the sanctified.

Thirdly, this volume does just what it says it will not
do. It presents a personal theology. I have already hinted at this in noting
that Father Michael is not always fair in his treatment of heterodox views.
This hint becomes an open statement in the book's treatment of Saint (the
Blessed) Augustine, who has always held, despite Father Michael's unsubstantiated
claims to the contrary, a high position of respect in the Orthodox Church.
The various theological errors found in some of Augustine's work are brought
together, in numerous references in the book, to paint the portrait of
someone who, we are told, may have been a heretic, who may have contributed
to the downfall of Western Christianity, and who may have had roots in
abstruse Jewish thought or pagan Hellenism. Father Michael's curious preoccupation
with the errors of Saint Augustine, which may disfigure some of the theological
writings of this Father, but which in no way compromise his sanctity and
the enduring beauty of the bulk of his writings, betrays a certain personal
problem with this figure. One can only speculate the author's early education
in a fundamentalistic Protestant college brought this figure, so important
to many reformed theological traditions, into some kind of negative focus.
At any rate, so extreme is his view that, violating scholarly propriety,
he juxtaposes, wholly out of context, Father Georges Florovsky's comments
on a process of "pseudomorphosis" in the theological development of the
Church with his own assessment of Saint Augustine. As those of us who knew
Father Florovsky and who benefited from his teaching can attest, at no
time did he question the position of Augustine of Hippo in the ranks of
the Fathers and saints of the Orthodox Church. Suggesting such a thing
even by moot juxtaposition is wholly wrong.

I should add that Father Michael softens some of his views
about Saint Augustine in an appendix—an addition which must reflect the
reaction of other critics to references within the text to Saint Augustine.
Here, Father Michael notes that Augustine never had much impact on the
Orthodox world, and thus his heretical views did not change the Church's
teachings. (We might then ask why such great attention is placed on the
"errors" in Augustine's teachings in a book which purports to examine the
teachings of Orthodoxy.) He restates his view that the Fathers of the Church
who did cite Saint Augustine did not know his writings (a completely erroneous
claim). He comments on the sincerity of Saint Augustine, while wondering
why some Orthodox writers have ranked him among the saints of the Orthodox
Church (and, by extension, questions the authority of the Church to place
Saint Augustine in its list of saints). In effect, his appendix attempts
to place his personal views on Augustine within the consensus of the Fathers
and the conscience of the Church. He fails. Let me illustrate this point
in two ways.

While many Orthodox writers have questioned some of Saint
Augustine's views (see, for example, Father John Romanides' Franks,
Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine [Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox
Press, 1981]), even attributing later Western heresies to his theological
errors, they have always done so with a certain moderation. This is a point
which we should not overlook. It is one which reflects rather negatively
on Father Michael's polemical treatment of Saint Augustine. Moreover, there
is a popular veneration of Saint Augustine among the Orthodox faithful,
especially in Greece, which belies Father Michael's idea that the saint
is an unimportant one. Veneration does not survive in the Orthodox Church
(even if it is only a few hundred years old, as Father Michael claims—a
point easily challenged by Father's own admission of Russian and Byzantine
references to the Saint through the course of many centuries—, if it does
not express the faith of the people and divine Providence. Nor does it
reach the highness of expression that we see in the comments of one very
respected Greek writer in his recent book on Saint Augustine, The Son
of Tears: The Divine Augustine (Archimandrite Theodore K. Berates)
[Thessalonike, 19851 [in Greek]: "More than all else that he was, the Divine
Augustine was a soul which struggled.... In the life of Saint Augustine
of Hippo is one of the greatest figures of our Church and, more generally,
of history." If, as Father Michael says, Saint Augustine is a figure whom
"it would be inappropriate to hold up as a teacher" in the Church, this
opinion is largely his and that of a small minority of Orthodox somewhat
excessive in their zeal.

In certain ultra-conservative Orthodox circles in the
United States, there has developed an unfortunate bitter and harsh attitude
toward one of the great Fathers of the Church, the blessed (Saint) Augustine
of Hippo (354-430 A.D.). These circles, while clearly outside the mainstream
of Orthodox thought and careful scholarship, have often been so vociferous
and forceful in their statements that their views have touched and even
affected more moderate and stable Orthodox believers and thinkers. Not
a few writers and spiritual aspirants have been disturbed by this trend.
So it is that I am absolutely delighted to have a copy of Father Seraphim's
small, but powerful, tome on the significance and status of Saint Augustine
in the Orthodox Church. His book is particularly significant since it comes
from the pen of a spiritual writer, who, before his untimely death in 1982,
was a chief advocate of moderation and careful, charitable thinking about
the Church and her Fathers among some of the most conservative Orthodox
elements in this country—an advocacy that earned him, more often than not,
the flat condemnation of the ultra-conservative factionalists mentioned
above.

It is certainly true that, in terms of classical Orthodox
thought on the subject, Saint Augustine placed grace and human free will
at odds, if only because his view of grace was too overstated and not balanced
against the Patristic witness as regards the efficacy of human choice and
spiritual labor. Likewise, as an outgrowth of his understanding of grace,
Augustine developed a theory of predestination that further distorted the
Orthodox understanding of free will. And finally, Augustine's theology
proper, his understanding of God, in its mechanical, overly logical, and
rationalistic tone, leads one, to some extent, away from the mystery of
God-which is lost, indeed, in Saint Augustine's failure to capture fully
the very mystery of man. About these general shortcomings in Augustinian
thought there can be no doubt. And it is with these precise weaknesses
in mind that Father Seraphim formulates his understanding of Augustine's
place in Orthodoxy.

Father Seraphim convincingly argues, with a multitude
of primary references, that, while Augustine's ideas may have been used
and distorted in the West to produce more modern theories (such as Calvinistic
predestination, sola gratia, or even deism), the Saint himself was
not guilty of the kind of innovative theologizing that his more extreme
detractors would claim he championed. Indeed, Father Seraphim shows that
Augustine never denied the free will of the individual; that his view of
grace was one which, in later years, largely through the influence of his
Western contemporaries, he felt compelled to revise; and that his understanding
of God, despite his overly logical approach to theology, was derived from
a deeply Orthodox encounter with the Trinity—something which a passing
interest in his Confessions would aver. Attached to his argument
for a moderate understanding of Saint Augustine are gleanings from Father
Seraphim's study of the Patristic reaction to Augustine. To a number, the
great Fathers of the Church whom he cites count Augustine among the great
Fathers, qualifying their praise with precisely, the words of the author
of this little book: that Saint Augustine wrote from an Orthodox heart
and with an Orthodox mind, but erred in expressing himself with too much
dependence on human logic and philosophical rigor, thus exposing his teaching
to later gross distortions, making his small errors great ones.

What is most impressive about this book is that one can
see clearly that Father Seraphim has read. This may startle some
of my readers, but it is an important point. I have been reading the Fathers
for almost twenty years, and every extreme statement that I read on this
or that Patristic figure or witness rings a certain bell in me. Almost
without exception, this polemical literature begins with an exposition
of what is 'wrong' with a person or issue, never weighing against this
the positive elements. I have come to understand that this is simply because
these polemicists do not, in fact, have a reading knowledge of the Fathers;
they have gleaned from indices and secondary sources, controversial material,
which they then proceed to attack, never having read this material in context.
Moreover, their polemical tone and ugly treatment of often sincere figures
belie the spirit of charity and gentleness which is so much more present
in the Fathers than the occasional (though necessary) outbursts of righteous
indignation.

I recently read a 'first draft' of a work by one of the
ultra-conservative theologians whom Father Seraphim tries to answer in
his little book. Though this theologian is hailed as "the foremost Orthodox
thinker of this time," he is unknown outside his own circles. His grasp
of basic English is abominably poor, and his writings have the telltale
signs of the kind of selective reading I mention above. I am sure that
this man is wholly sincere, but as I compared his work to that of Father
Seraphim, I began to see that he had depersonalized his subjects, making
great Fathers of the Church nothing but cold, stone figures. What Seraphim
has done in this small book is to personalize Saint Augustine—to bring
a man, a human being, before us, demonstrating to us how the greatness
of God, nonetheless, worked through the littleness of the man (if, indeed,
we can but rhetorically call so great a man as Augustine 'little'). It
is this personal element which commends Father Seraphim's book to the Orthodox
believer and the Orthodox scholar alike.

I might lastly add that the Introduction to this book,
by Father Alexey Young, is a useful piece of writing in itself. With an
almost 'pastoral' tone, it sets the stage for Father Seraphim's scholarly
drama—and that is just what the book is: a drama. It brings to life a character
and, in so doing, throws a shadow of grave doubt over the writings of those
who would make the 'divine Augustine,' as Saint Mark of Ephesus calls him,
the Father of heresies and the source of all Western error. In fact, the
shadow throws not only doubts but unbelief.

I highly recommend this excellent book to anyone interested
in a fair and profound view of the great Father Augustine of Hippo.

Archimandrite [now Archbishop] Chrysostomos

Orthodox Tradition, Vol. II, Nos. 3&4, pp.
40-43.

Excerpt from Book Review of Fr. Michael's The Teachings
of the Holy Orthodox Church, Vol. 1:

It is hard to put up with all these shortcomings. But
to them is added yet a further blemish—a perfectly rabid hatred of the
blessed Augustine. The blessed Augustine is mentioned not only in a special
appendix devoted entirely to him, but also several times in each chapter.
Each time, he is dubbed "the greatest heresiarch" (p. 54) or the like.
Thus it would sometimes seem the author really wanted to write a book on
the blessed Augustine. To him he ascribes all the ills and misfortunes
that arose in the West, and, of course, among Orthodox who were influenced
by the West. Judging by this book, I am afraid that poor Fr. Michael Azkoul
is himself the first victim of such Western influence! If he stood on purely
Orthodox foundations, he would not express himself with such hatred. On
the last page (206), he blames the blessed Augustine for Calvinism. This
shows us the dishonesty of the author's approach. We all know the weaknesses
in the writings of the blessed Augustine. But the Church never passed judgement
on him for this, especially as he constantly emphasized that he was expressing
his personal opinion and did not wish to impose it on others. Many of his
writings he reworked and rewrote before the end of his life.

We can find equally weak points in the writings of almost
all the Holy fathers, but we are not about to cross out the name of St.
Basil the Great from among the saints because he made—from our point of
view—incorrect expressions about the Holy Trinity, which are due partly
to his caution in polemic with heretics and schismatics and partly to the
imperfect theological thought of his time. If the author refers to the
lack of a service to St. Augustine, he should look further and seek the
reasons in something one might call Greek chauvinism. Must we really give
up celebrating the Presanctified Liturgy because the Greeks did not trouble
to compose a service in honor of St. Gregory the Dialogist?

In the Russian Church it is customary to call Augustine
of Hippo "the blessed." Concerning his significance and veneration, the
late priestmonk Seraphim (of Platina) wrote a splendid and truly Orthodox
book. With his book one can fully agree.

The Synod of Bishops' least novice,

+BISHOP [now ARCHBISHOP] MARK of Berlin and All Germany

(Translated from the Russian text as published in
CHURCH LIFE, No. 11-12, November/December 1986, the
official organ of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside
Russia. Translated from the Russian by Archpriest John R. Shaw.)

On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, by St. Photios

Webmaster Note: It is clear from the numerous statements
by St. Photios in his Mystagogy that he considers Augustine and
Ambrose, et. al, to be Fathers of the Church. He does not, however, place
the word "Saint" before any of the Fathers he cites throughout his text.

Ch. 68: Who is it who says that Ambrose or Augustine or
anyone else affirmed things contrary to the Lord's word? If it is I, I
insult your fathers. But if you say it, while I deny it, then you insult
them, and I condemn you as a blasphemer of the fathers. But, you retort,
they have written so, and their works contain the statement that the Spirit
proceeds from the Son. What of it? For if they had been instructed and
did not change their opinion, if after just rebukes they were not persuaded
(this is again another calumny against your fathers), then you may reckon
your own deed and ascribe your own incorrigible opinion to their doctrine.
Although in other things they are of equal stature with the best, what
does it have to do with you? For if they have either slipped into some
error or been subject to any negligence—for such is the human condition—when
they were admonished, they did not contradict, nor were they contumacious
when corrected. How will they who bear no resemblance to you help deliver
you from ineluctable judgment? Although they were admirable by reason of
many other qualities which manifest virtue and piety, they professed your
godless error either through ignorance or through negligence. But if they
in no manner shared the benefit of your advantages, why do you introduce
their human defect as a mandate for your blasphemous belief? By your mandate,
you attest that men who have legislated nothing of this sort are open transgressors,
and so you demand a penalty for the uttermost blasphemy under the mask
of benevolence and love. The results of your attempts do not benefit you.
Observe the impious exaggeration and the stupidity of a base mind.

Ch. 70: I do not admit that what you assert was so plainly
taught by them, but if they happened to express some such thing, if they
happened to fall into something unbecoming, then I would imitate the good
sons of Noe [Noah] and hide my father's shame, by using silence and gratitude
as a cloak. I would not follow Chain's [Ham's] example, as do you.
Rather, you are crueler and more impudent than he, for you publish
abroad the shame of those you call your fathers. Now, he fell under the
curse, not because he uncovered his father, but because he did not cover
him. You, however, both uncover your fathers and vaunt your audacity. He
tells the secret to his brothers; you tell yours not to brothers, or to
one or two persons, but turning the whole world into a great theatre, you
trumpet with all urgency and shamelessness that your fathers are ignominous.
You revel in their shame and delight in their dishonor, and you seek out
fellow revelers with whom to make more conspicuous festival of their disgrace
and shame. But you did not consider that they were human, and that no one
constituted from clay and mutable matter can maintain himself forever superior
to a human blunder. Indeed, it happens that a trace of some blemish clings
even to the best of men.

Ch. 71: Augustine and Jerome said that the Spirit proceeds
from the Son. How can one trust or vouch with confidence that their writings
have not been maliciously altered after the passage of so much time? For
do not think that you are the only one eager for impiety and bold in things
not to be dared. Rather, from this very condition of your own mind, consider
that nothing hindered the guileful enemy of our race from finding vessels
for such a deed.

Ch. 72: Augustine and Jerome said these things. But perhaps
they spoke out of the necessity of attacking the madness of the pagans
or of refuting another heretical opinion or of condescending to the weakness
of their hearers, or out of the necessity of any one of the many other
reasons that human life daily presents. If such a statement perchance escaped
their lips because of one or more of the above reasons, why do you make
a dogma and law of what was not spoken by them with dogmatic significance
and so bring irreparable ruin upon yourself by contentiously enlisting
them in your dementia?

Ch. 73: That preacher of the whole world, the contemplator
of the ineffable who ennobled nature with his manner of life, what did
he say when he opposed himself to the Hellenists who were gushing forth
a spate of words? He condescended to their infirmity and prepared to bring
down their haughty brow. "For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions,
I found an altar with this inscription, 'To the Unknown God.' Whom therefore
ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you." What then? Will you make
dogma those utterances of Paul by which that doctor of the Church captured
the wise men of Greece and led them by the hand from impiety to piety?
Will you dare to denounce Paul, the caster down of idols, of having preached
that same one whom the Greeks were worshipping and naming the unknown god?
It would not be remarkable when we consider the operation of your wisdom
and the web of your quibbling sophistries. Although that altar was erected
to Pan, the city of Athens did not know the name of him whom the altar
previously honored and so inscribed upon it: "To the unknown god." Now
because that adroit and heavenly man saw that the heathen were not convinced
by the pronouncements of the prophets and the oracles of the Lord, he recalls
them from those execrable devotions to the worship of the Creator. He uses
the very proclamations of the devil to condemn the devil's tyranny; from
the devil's citadel, he destroys the dominion of his authority; he cultivates
piety amidst impiety and produces for us shoots of salvation out of perdition;
from the snare of the devil, he strengthens them to run the course of the
Gospel; he makes the summit of apostasy a portal of access through which
they can enter into the bridal chamber and immaculate nuptials of Christ:
the Church. Just so was that sublime mind, wherein was borne strength from
on high, vigorous to wound and to subjugate the enemy by the enemy's own
weapons. What then? Because Paul overcame him with the enemy's own weapons,
will you on that account honor those weapons and call them divine and wield
them for your own slaughter? How many like examples can be found in him
who wisely disposed all things in the strength of the Spirit!

Ch. 74: But what need is there of examples? He himself
says with a clear voice: "unto the Jews I become a Jew, that I might gain
the Jews; to them that are under the Law, as under the Law, that I might
gain them that are under the Law; to them that are without Law as without
Law, (being not without Law to God, but under the Law to Christ) that I
might gain them that are without Law." Will you then, on that account,
restore Judaism, or will you legislate lawlessness instead of the divine
and human laws for the conduct of our life and shamelessly—nay, rather
godlessly—say that such are the commandments and such is the preaching
of Paul?

Ch. 75: Indeed, in how many of our blessed and holy fathers
is it possible to find such things! Look at Clement, the high priest of
Rome, and the books which are known from him as Clementine (I do
not say write, since ancient report has it that Peter the Coryphaeus commanded
that they be written). Consider Dionysios of Alexandria, who from his opposition
to Sabellios all but joins hands with Arius. Consider that splendor of
sacred-martyrs, Methodios of Patara, who does not reject the belief that
the angels had fallen into mortal desire and bodily intercourse, although
they are of a bodiless nature and without passions. I shall pass over Pantaenos
and Clement, as well as Pierios and Pamphilos and Theognostos, sacred men
and teachers of sacred learning, whom we celebrate with great honor and
acceptance, especially Pamphilos and Pierios, distinguished by the trials
of martyrdom. Although we do not accept every one of their statements,
we grant them honor for a distinguished life and for their other doctrines.
Along with the aforementioned, we shall also pass by the Fathers from the
West: Irenaeus, high priest of God, who received the supervision of sacred
things in Lugdunum [i.e., Lyons], and his disciple Hippolytus, the martyr
among high priests: men wonderful in many respects, though at times some
of their writings do not refrain from digressing from exactitude.

Ch. 76: Will you then apply your disjunctive premise against
all of these men and, with raised brows, say: "Either these men ought to
be honored and their writings should not be rejected, or, if we reject
some of their words, we should at the same time reject the men themselves"?
. . .